希望的烛光
Candle of Hope
This is 希望, pronounced as 'xi-wang', which means hope. When I first saw this piece of wood, about 5" by 5", I was attracted to its grain, the part that resembles a lit candle. It looks very interesting to me.

When I see the flame on a lit candle, it always reminds me of the hope of life or in life.
So naturally the word 'hope' came
straight to my mind.

I decided to paint the characters golden and copper just to show some metallic or glowing effect which looked as if it was due to the light that shone on them.

I have to say this. The candle, looks almost perfect, with the 'dot' (an eye on the wood) in the flame and the melted wax at its bottom.... oooooh I love it really! :)

I asked some friends to guess what it looked like and they gave me different answers: a pair of scissors, a man standing straight with both arms stretched out upwards, and even ... a genital! God! That was the reason I decided to colour the candle to 'enhance' its look. I also added the luminous part around the flame. Thus, the candle of hope.

About a year later, somehow, I felt that the candle part was too obvious, or too highlighted that people who looked at it no longer could appreciate the beauty of the natural grain of the wood as before. I knew I had to make some changes.

Then I sanded it. I wanted to keep the grain visible so I stained it. And I re-painted the second character, 望, with the colour as the first. Now it doesn't look that artificial anymore.

I did this piece of wood when I was at the downside of my life and during then, I was really hoping for myself that everything would turn out to be okay. I needed encouragement and support from any source I could get. Therefore, when I found this little plaque and saw its grain, I was determined to get it and to carve the word 'Hope' on it. I was pleased when I completed the work. It has special meaning to me.

家和万事兴
HOME Sweeeeeet HOME

This is a traditional saying which means 'There is millions of blessing when a family lives in harmony.'

The old chinese folks love this, alot.

As most of my carvings, the characters on this plaque were written in the ancient oracle font. This is how you pronounce the phrase: jia-he-wan-shi-xing (in chinese phonetic). 'jia' means home or family.

The wood used in this plaque was part of a bookshelf which I found by the lift of my block. This is so far, the biggest piece of carving I have ever done. It is 8" by 27.5".

I think it took me about 2 weeks to carve the characters. I was considering navy blue as the colour but thought I wanted a warmer colour. I finally decided to go with purple. Having painted it, I felt like it was still missing something... a feel of a sweet lovely atmosphere. Perhaps a garden would add beauty to a home and so I painted little flowers on the plaque, and then the vines. I love the final touch being added on the plaque.

Well, everyone has a home. No matter what one does or where one goes, ultimately will return to home. Home is very very important in our life. Keeping harmony in home and maintainting it is really an art which requires alot of, not just knowledge, understanding and consideration.